Seven Days on 30A
Meg Florence Photography
Santa Rosa Beach, FL
Six people. Four kids. One minivan. Zero regrets.
I packed the laptop.
I had a whole plan. Stay on top of email. Handle anything that came up. Maybe knock out a project after the kids went to bed. I’ve taken enough trips to know that “fully unplugged” is usually something people say, not something they do.
I didn’t open it once.
Seven days on Florida’s Emerald Coast and I was just a husband and a dad — feet in the sand, present for all of it. The inbox survived without me. It always does. We just convince ourselves otherwise.
Here’s how the week went. Every stop. Every meal. Every moment worth remembering. Take notes.
- The Drive -
Six people. One Honda Odyssey. Eight and a half hours — closer to twelve with stops.
We’re from Owensboro, Kentucky. The drive to Santa Rosa Beach is a commitment. Someone will need a bathroom the moment you pass a good exit (stop at Buc-cee’s anyway). The last hour feels like three.
There will be a moment somewhere in Alabama where you question your decision-making.
What is DeFuniak Springs?
Then you crest that last bridge and the Emerald Coast opens up in front of you — green water, white sand, all of it. And you stop questioning anything.
Every mile is worth it.
Emerald Jewel
- Home Base: Emerald Jewel -
Finding the right rental for six people — two adults, four kids ages 1 to 15 — is harder than it sounds. The age spread alone creates problems. What works for a toddler doesn’t work for a teenager. What works for a teenager doesn’t work for a toddler.
Emerald Jewel worked for everyone.
It’s an Airbnb cottage in Santa Rosa Beach, and it earned its name. Comfortable. Inviting. Set up like a real home, not a place you’re just tolerating between beach trips. The beach was walkable. The pool got used every single day.
GoatFeathers and the Gulf View Snack Shack are practically in the backyard. Our host was responsive and kind from start to finish.
I’ve traveled a lot. This was our best rental, full stop.
We’ll be back.
Book it early. It won’t be sitting open in June.
- The Week -
Sunday.
We pulled in. Went to Publix. Hit a drive-thru. Let everyone decompress.
That’s it. That’s the whole day. And it was exactly right.
Don’t over-schedule Day 1. You just drove twelve hours with four kids.
Monday.
Beach in the morning. Pool in the afternoon. That was the plan and we stuck to it.
The pool had its own energy. We played Marco Polo. Ran family trivia, you got dunked or splashed if the answer was wrong. Tossed the football. Met a family from Cincinnati and another from Indianapolis — the kind of easy conversation that only happens when everyone’s on vacation and nobody’s in a hurry.
I had my camera out and one of the dads turned out to be a photographer and wedding videographer. We talked gear longer than either of us planned. One of those unexpected conversations you don’t see coming. Super nice guy.
Then the afternoon thunderstorm hit — Gulf Coast standard operating procedure — and every family on the beach made the same move at the same time. Head inside. Find dinner. The restaurants filled up fast.
Long waits everywhere — three hours for Stinky’s Fish Camp.
Papa Surf Burger Bar had a table for six on the covered patio. We took it.
It was trivia night. We didn’t officially play — we just listened in and shouted answers at each other across the table. Marshall ordered the “Queso + Chips” — that’s the actual menu item, said exactly like that, which became one of those inside jokes that probably won’t make sense to anyone outside the six of us but will never not be funny. They disappeared before we knew it. I got the Beach Cowboy Burger. Still thinking about it.
The rain stopped. Cotton candy sky at sunset.
Temperature dropped 10 degrees, and then the ocean breeze.
That’s a vacation night right there.
This is also why you make reservations before you leave home. We got lucky Monday. Don’t count on lucky.
Tuesday.
Up early. Out the door before the house was moving.
Alyssa ran a 5K with me along the 30A multi-use path for her weekly conditioning requirement (the committed student-athlete that she is) — from the Airbnb to Blue Mountain Beach Creamery and back.
I tacked on an extra mile to loop down to the beach and jump in the Gulf before heading home. Running 30A in the morning when it’s cool and the traffic is still slow is something else. Do it.
Once everyone was up, we drove to Seaside for the Farmers Market. If you haven’t been to Seaside, put it on the list. The architecture alone is worth stopping for — it’s the real-life blueprint for New Urbanism and the filming location for The Truman Show.
The market is everything a farmers market should be: local vendors, street food, live music, kids playing, good energy. We hit The Seaside Style, grabbed ice cream from a street vendor, and wandered into Sundog Books.
I don’t know the last time I walked into an indie bookstore and felt that way about it. I picked up Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea. Marshall grabbed Project Hail Mary. Alyssa walked out with two — Men Explain Things to Me and The Phantom of the Opera.
A bookstore that sends a fifteen-year-old home with two books is doing something right.
Vinyl store upstairs. Eclectic stickers everywhere. Everything was handwritten. Think Displaced Pages (for my Owensboro people), but at the beach.
Meg Florence Photography
I came to 30A with a reading list too. Brad Stulberg’s The Way of Excellence, Southernmost from Silas House, Allen Levi’s Theo of Golden — which I cannot recommend highly enough — and the Hemingway, which felt exactly right for a week on the water. The beach has a way of making you actually read the books you’ve been meaning to get to.
That evening we had our beach photo session with Meg Florence Photography. Golden hour on the Gulf, all six of us. She’s gifted, she’s easy to work with, and the photos are everything. Book her long before you leave home.
Not when you get there. Before.
Dinner was Outcast Pizza — Meat Lover’s for me, Margherita for Charity, and BBQ Butt for Alyssa, classic Cheese for the boys, and Garlic Knots that were gone embarrassingly fast. We closed the night inside — Apples to Apples in the living room with a movie playing in the background. Nobody was really watching it. Just noise and laughter.
Wednesday.
Beach morning. Pool afternoon.
At the beach we got to talking with a family from Nashville — trading recommendations the way strangers do when they’re all trying to figure out the same stretch of coastline. Good people. Instantly comfortable.
Then the wind picked up, sent my tent directly into theirs, and tore it.
I offered to replace it immediately. They shut that down fast. “You’re not responsible for the wind.” Just like that, an awkward moment became a good story. That’s the kind of people they were.
Midday we stopped at the Gulf View Snack Shack. I had a Coke Float. On vacation, that’s a defensible choice. The kids got single scoops that were more like pints.
That evening we drove to The Big Chill at WaterSound — open air, multiple food options, a 25-foot jumbotron, the kind of communal setup that works for a family without anyone having to compromise too hard. It was family movie night, and The Minecraft Movie was on.
When it ended, we were treated to Game 1 of the NBA finals between the Knicks and the Spurs.
Charity and I got Po Boys. Alyssa ordered the street tacos and the brisket mac and cheese. The brisket mac and cheese was legitimately one of the best things anyone ate all week. I’m not overstating it. Order it.
The big kids hit the arcade, and Anderson and I took a trip to Build-A-Bear. He recently turned five, and the Bowser was too awesome to pass up.
Thursday.
Activity day. Marshall had a sunburn and we needed a reason for him to keep a shirt on for a day, haha.
We drove to Gulfarium Marine Adventure Park in Fort Walton Beach. With a 1-year-old and a 5-year-old in the mix, you need something that delivers across the board.
The Gulfarium delivered. Dolphin show. Sea lion show. Seals, sharks, manatees, crocodiles, alligators, penguins. The whole thing. All with a beach view.
Marshall got a bracelet that tracks a real penguin named Columbia and her babies in the South Atlantic. He’s still talking about it.
On the way back we stopped at The Donut Hole. A Panhandle institution and rightfully so. Alyssa got the toasted coconut. Marshall went chocolate sprinkles — classic, no notes. The sleeper on the menu is the key lime pie. Get it. Trust me on this one.
Pool in the afternoon. Then a late dinner to-go from GoatFeathers, just steps from the Airbnb. I walked over and ordered at the bar.
The beer-battered fish and shrimp were the best thing I ate all week. Fresh Gulf seafood done exactly right. Cole Slaw. Hushpuppies. But the best moment of the night happened at the bar.
The bartender carded me for my rum and Coke, then asked — completely out of nowhere — if I’d ever had a Ferrell’s burger.
Ferrell’s is a Western Kentucky institution. 24 hours a day, the flat top is hot and sizzling with smash burgers. I’ve had it dozens of times.
Turns out he was from Madisonville, Kentucky. About 45 minutes from home. Moved to Santa Rosa Beach nine years ago. He said it plainly, the way someone does when they’ve fully made peace with a decision:
“I figured I could be poor there, or be poor here. It worked out. I’ve got a nice spot with four acres on the other side of the bay and make a fantastic living tending bar for vacationers down here.”
Friday.
Best beach day of the trip. No agenda. Nowhere to be. Just sun and water until we decided we were done.
We ran into the Nashville family again. They had a brand new tent. Kentucky Blue, as it turned out. A family from Nashville on a Florida beach flying Kentucky Blue after a wind incident involving a guy from Owensboro — the universe has a sense of humor.
Dinner was at The Bay. The crab cakes were seriously unreal. I got the Bomber Burger. Both held up. But the move — the real move — is saving room for the peanut butter pie. We almost didn’t. That would have been a mistake we’d have had to live with.
After dinner we went back to the beach for sunset. All six of us. Ran up and down the beach in the surf. Watched the sun fall behind the horizon line.
That was the moment.
Saturday.
One last morning before the drive home.
I walked down to the beach access and stopped at the Little Free Library at the entrance. Left a signed copy of It Goes With You for whoever showed up next without something to read. Felt like the right way to close out the week.
Then we loaded the Odyssey, said our goodbyes to the Nashville family one last time, and pointed the minivan north.
- What I’d Tell You Before You Go -
Make your dinner reservations before you leave the driveway. 30A restaurants fill up fast in the summer, especially for a party of six. Monday’s thunderstorm bailed us out — don’t count on the storm bailing you out.
The beach works with little kids. I expected chaos. What I found was four children who all, independently, love sand and water. The age spread that felt complicated at home dissolved the moment we hit the beach.
Nap logistics are the real challenge. The 1-year-old and the 5-year-old need sleep. The teenagers have their own agendas. Build your afternoons around the pool at the house, and you’ll find your rhythm by Day 2.
Book Meg Florence Photography. Before you leave. Not when you get there.
Check out. All the way. Whatever’s in your inbox will still be there when you get home. This week won’t be.
Seven days. Six people. One stretch of the most beautiful coastline in America.
We made it there and back. The only things we left behind were footprints in the sand — and my black Stanley tumbler.
We’ll be back.
Where to Stay: Emerald Jewel — Airbnb, Santa Rosa Beach
Where to Eat: Papa Surf Burger Bar · Outcast Pizza · Gulf View Snack Shack · The Big Chill · GoatFeathers · The Bay · The Donut Hole
Where to Explore: Seaside Farmers Market · Sundog Books · The Seaside Style · Gulfarium Marine Adventure Park
Who to Book: Meg Florence Photography
What to Read: The Way of Excellence — Brad Stulberg · Southernmost – Silas House · Theo of Golden — Allen Levi · The Old Man and the Sea — Ernest Hemingway · It Goes With You – Brandon Cox :)
